The Clom Saga - Episode I: Alone in the Dark
by MiekKenr
Summary: The 481st TIE Squadron is in charge of guarding the most worthless section of the galaxy, but when all communication with the Imperial Navy goes dark with half their force away at Endor, these young pilots will face decisions that will alter their lives forever.
1. Dramatis Personae

Episode I: Alone in the Dark Cast

Lieutenant Miek Kenr (Miek, prn. 'mee-ek') (Alpha Five) (starstenian male from Starstenia)

Flight Officer Eliber "Wart" Raun (Alpha Ten) (human male from Jorsch)

Flight Officer Jaz "Frog" Elameen (Alpha Four) (human male from Dantooine)

Flight Officer Kell "Sleepy" Crosse (Alpha Eleven) (human male from Denab)

Flight Officer Jacob "Prince" Evisarii (Beta Four) (human male from the Hapes Cluster)

Lieutenant Kristofer "Boom-boom" Ralgar (Beta Nine) (human male from Bespin)

Colonel Worl Vagon (Base Commander) (human male from Coruscant)

Chief Petty Officer Para Rengali (Imperial Intelligence) (humane female from Telaviiv)

Corporal Ren Tully (Imperial Scout) (human female from Ursine XI)

Lieutenant Bennet Vanderly (Imperial Navy) (human male from Corellia)


	2. Chapter 1 - Miek

1. MIEK

Lieutenant Miek Kenr sat in the only lounge aboard Platform C-16. With booted feet up on the table, his chair pushed back on its hind two legs, he shuffled through a stack of sabacc cards. They were face-down and plucked one card after another off the top of the deck, paused, staring at it, and then turning it face-up on the table. Each card flip was followed by a curse, except with the very few occasions where dumb luck guessed the right value.

The lounge was all but empty, and the clock on the wall flashed 0213. Most of the pilots not on 3rd Watch alert status were asleep, or should be. Miek was the only one up for alert launch that night, despite the normal procedure calling for three. The station was too short-handed. They barely were able to keep two-man patrols with most of the 481st recalled back to Endor. All that was left was a skeleton crew to man the station and pilot the aging TIEs. Not much happened out here at the end of space. When Miek had joined the Imperial Navy he expected adventure and ports of call. Instead he ended up on a derelict Communications Platform in the middle of an asteroid belt. The most exciting thing that happened here was when some important bit of data was tossed through C-15 and routed to them, where they would decrypt it, read it, and re-encrypt it to send onto other stations or capital ships operating in the area. And the 481st Fighter Squadron's job was to protect this good-for-almost-nothing station.

"Still trying to convince yourself that you can use the Force?"

The voice was female, older in tone, though still energetic enough to make the chief's age dubious. She was raven-haired and pale, with dark eyes and a short chin. Her hair was always tightly bound at the back of her head, and her uniform pressed like she never sat down. Miek glanced up from his cards to her. He let out a grunt and slapped down another card he'd failed to guess. "Morning chief, what has you up at this perfectly sane hour?"

She walked passed him to the wide, thin viewport that extended nearly a quarter of the lounge's round walls, showing a view of the green gas planet below. Large asteroids floated idly by the viewport as well, some bigger than the station itself. Chief Petty Officer Para Rengali stood by the expansive view on one side, staring out. Miek looked back down at his cards. He knew she'd be silent for a while. As the only member of Imperial Intelligence operating aboard the Platform, she carried with her an air of self-importance and intrigue. Most of the pilots avoided her at all costs and Miek was no exception. Part of him was glad she didn't respond to his statement and he was beginning to forget she was even there when she did speak.

"The Rebellion could be crushed as we speak," she said, and Miek felt her gaze on him. He didn't look up. "Swell," he offered, choosing another wrong card. The chief's voice returned, still going on like Miek was hardly there. "That's why I'm up, lieutenant, waiting to hear something about the battle."

"I'm sure it's going fine," he said, and this time picked the correct card and felt such elation he put more emphasis into his theory. "I'm sure that Dim and Bucket and Sour will all come back bragging about how they saw the big Calamari ships explode while we sat here looking at rocks."

The woman grunted and when Miek looked up at her, she was staring out the window again. When another card came up wrong, he sighed and hit a button on the table to switch on the holoprojector. He wanted to scan the latest holonet dumps about what celebrity moff was seen with which celebrity dignitary in a sleezy getaway resort on station in the Outer-Rim. He loved the news out here. The work may be boring, but the locals could sure cook up some fantastic dirt.

"How do you stand that garbage?" the chief asked him as he focused on Moff Diggs and some Princess from Boswai VI. Miek shrugged and turned up the volume slightly. A shot came up of a blurry image of the supposed Moff pulling off the poor young Princess's all-to-easily torn dress. The newscaster looked horrified in a suitably fake fashion. "What's not to love?"

She was about to comment when the feed went dead. The holonet connection seemed to just dissipate before his eyes. "Aw c'mon, no! No that's not fair! We were just getting to the good part!" He rapidly hit a few buttons, trying to reset the connection but nothing was happening. "Damn it."

"What is it?" the chief asked, looking over from her window again, frowning.

"Stupid holonet disconnected," he complained and checked another table, and then another. They were all similarly dead. His eyes eventually tracked to the wall and the clock, which was fed directly from the Coruscant standard clock tower. The numbers flashed 0000. The chief seemed to catch this at the same time he did, and she quickly moved from the window towards the door.

"Probably just a glitch, I'll contact C-15." And then she was gone, and Miek was left standing alone in the lounge again, half of his cards uncounted.

By the time the remaining pilots of the Squadron were called into the meager briefing room, scuttlebutt had thoroughly decided the reason for the loss of communications was due to yet another kind of ore found in the asteroids. The ore was obviously extremely valuable and their post out here was actually an honor. Of course, someone else suggested that if it was ore capable of disrupting any kind of communications then obviously it was infecting everyone aboard the platform with some kind of weird disease. After that, no one suggested that it was an ore of any kind.

"What do you think it is?" Wart asked Miek in the cafeteria just before the announcement that all pilots should report to the briefing room. Wart was born Eliber Raun, but his face was full of warts and small boils that the nickname had stuck since the first day he'd come aboard as a fresh Flight Officer. He'd become something of Miek's protégé, though there wasn't much he felt he could pass on to the young man. 'Don't get shot,' he'd told Wart the first day he'd been asked for help.

"What do I think it is? I think it's a conspiracy by the holonet producers to make each and every episode of As the Galaxy Turns a cliffhanger due to power outages."

"Really?"

"No," Miek said with a snort. "It's probably just a solar storm or something."

But it wasn't a solar storm and as the Platform's commanding officer, Colonel Worl Vagon, informed them, the situation was much different than any of them had anticipated. An animated man with graying hair, a short mustache, and spectacles, Vagon always talked while demonstrating with his hands like an orchestra conductor. He preferred to stand in front of the podium, rather than behind. Chief Rengali manned the holoprojector, keeping it going to where the Colonel indicated. The projector was focused currently on a readout of the sector, with each blue dot on the spherical map indicating an imperial outpost. Their own outpost was labeled, as well as Platform C-15.

"As of 0210 this morning, our communications link with the hologrid and imperial DATACOM was cut. The cause for this interruption is unknown but we've been unsuccessful in reaching anyone. Long range sensors are picking up a lot of activity at the fringes, near Buoy B-12." Rengali hit a button and the map highlighted a buoy near Platform C-15 as Vagon went on. "Chief Rengali believes that perhaps pirates or privateers are taking advantage of the weakened imperial presence here to raid our communications bases for intelligence." The Colonel seemed to find this act disgusting and his facial expression was like he'd tasted something bitter, his hands were held, palm up, offering his next words to his pilots. "I'm sending a transport and some escorts to C-15 to find out what's going on. If they're being attacked, drive off the intruders and allow the transport to land. It will be carrying engineers on board to help fix the uplink between our stations. When that's back up, we should be able to find at least a weak signal back to a relay station. I can't stress how important it is that we maintain a connection to DATACOM while the Battle at Endor rages on. If we're needed…"

There was a murmur among the pilots. None of them seemed to believe anyone would call on this outpost for more help than they already had given. Their experienced pilots were already with the SSD Executor, fighting rebels. They were just what was left, a skeleton crew to keep this station going.

"Settle down people," the colonel said with a sigh. "Lieutenant," he said, indicating Miek. "I'm sending what little is left of Alpha to escort and I want you leading it along with Wart and Frog. You three are the best we have left and this is vital." Miek blinked at the order and opened and closed his mouth several times before he nodded. "Uh, yes, sir. Got it."

The colonel nodded and the screen flipped to a readout of their remaining fighter compliment. "We have precious few fighters left on this station, pilots. I'm sending Alpha in what few TIE Interceptors we have left. Try not to damage them, we'll need all the equipment we can get. Are there any other questions?"

Miek gave a smile to Wart before he raised his hand and was acknowledged. "Sir, in the event that the rebels attack us instead of Endor, how big of a medal would I get for saving the Empire?" The room rippled with chuckles and snickers. The colonel made a grim expression, but Miek was unable to hide the mirth in his own.

Later, the pilots were in the ready room, pulling on their flight suits and prepping for the mission. Miek tapped a last few notes into his datapad and slipped it into the pocket by his left knee. The datapad contained all the mission notes and briefing details that had been discussed and he'd be able to glance at them during the mission if something slipped by. The main thing was to make contact with C-15 and drive off any raiders that happened to be there. The pirates of the Green Moon clan were vicious but ultimately cowardly. They wouldn't risk a full loss of forces if they could avoid it, and their battered Y-wing compliments were hardly a match for a seasoned pilot in a TIE Interceptor. Still there was only going to be three of them and when last he checked, they were hardly seasoned…

"So, a flight leader today?" Wart said to him as Miek pulled his helmet off the rack and attached the hoses to the monitor on his chest guard. He nodded to the smaller man and sniffed a little, shrugging. "Aside from Boom-boom, I'm the highest ranking pilot so I guess it makes sense. Besides," he said, looking at Wart with a roguish grin. "I'm a natural leader. That's what that crazy woman said we pulled off the derelict last week. And remember how I talked you and Frog into putting laxative into the chief's drink?"

Wart frowned. "That was a stupid idea."

"But you listened."

Hanging his head, Wart nodded. "Yeah."

Miek smiled and donned his helmet, then walked over towards the exit door that would lead into the hangar deck where three TIE Interceptors were being prepped for launch. Typically he and his friends had always been assigned simple TIE Fighters, and it was only when he'd received his Lieutenant pins that he'd been cleared to fly the Interceptor with any relative frequency. But today they would need the speed if it came to a fight, and the Interceptor was better at power maintenance. It would be a long flight at sublight speed.

As he climbed the catwalk to the cockpit and the canopy was lowered, he double checked the mission briefing goals and tried very hard not to think about his real home of Starstenia. His eyes, which were the blue of chilled ice, looked over his primary objectives. _Get the Jennies on station and be on the look out for pirates,_ he thought, checking them both off in his mind. _I can do that._

"Alpha Two, Three, this is One. Check flight status." As he waited for their replies, he powered on the ship's systems and anti-grav systems, waiting for launch control to rotate the craft toward open space. He checked behind his flight couch for the extra oxygen reserves and found them sitting where they ought to be. Satisfied, he looked up. Ahead he could see the hangar bay exit shimmering. He gave a nudge to the engine's power and moved off the mag-lock that kept his fighter in its rack.

"One, Two is green."

"One, Three is green."

"Alpha One, this is Transport Omega with a crew full of anxious engineers. We're ready when you are."

"Omega we are exiting Hangar Bay Two, we will swing around Bay One and pick you up, be ready for us." After receiving an affirmative from the transport, Miek throttled up and broke free of the artificial gravity of the station. The whine of the twin ion engines behind him was nearly muffled by his helmet, but he could still feel it. His shoulders were tight against the crash webbing as weightlessness attempted to pull him in every direction as he banked away from the Hangar Bay's extension arm. Glancing behind him, he caught sight of Wart and then Frog in his wake. Satisfied everything was in order, he momentarily inverted his interceptor in relation to the station and rolled back and forth, waggling his solar panels at his wingmates. The other two did the same, making him smile. Some people talked to each other, they had their own ways of saying 'we're all right.'

Miek led the flight of three interceptors around the base to Hang Bay One where Omega was sitting, waiting for them. "Come on in Omega," Miek said with more than a little amusement in his voice. "The water's great. We'll doggy paddle you all the way to C-15."

"Let's ease the chatter Alpha One." The voice was the Chief's. Heaving a sigh, Miek clicked over to a private channel with his wingmates. "I bet Buck Starlighter never has to deal with this kind of pudu on One Star to Live."

The crew formed up and sped away from the station as fast as the transport could go. Miek double checked the coordinates and set them into the rudimentary navicomputer the TIEs had onboard, which were good for nothing more than holding data and displaying it on his sensors later. Flight time was to be eighteen hours to C-15. He flipped a switch to lock his flight controls so he would keep on his present course and filched his datapad from a thigh pocket, tapping it on. His comlink lit and he switched to his squadron frequency again.

"Hey, Miek."

"What is it Wart?"

"Do you think they have any girls on C-15?"

"None for you Wart," croaked Frog, who then bellowed a guffaw. Miek had a good chuckle at that too. All Wart came back with was "My mom said I was handsome." Shaking his head, Miek snorted the last of his laughter and coughed. He wished he could reach beneath his mask and wipe his nose but there was nothing to be done. It was sealed and releasing that seal would suffocate him or worse. He tapped the screen of his datapad and selected one of his pre-recorded episodes of As the Galaxy Turns. At least he'd find out if Shalara was actually dead on this trip. He guessed she wasn't, after all she died off screen, pulled into an alleyway by a shadow. These shows always brought back the heroine.

"Miek?"

He paused the recording. "What, Wart?"

"What are we going to do if there really are pirates attacking the station?"

"What do you mean 'what are we going to do'?"

"There's only three of us!"

"Wart, I saw you single-handedly remove half a rebel squadron flying just a TIE Fighter the other morning. What are you worried about?"

"That was a sim!"

"Yeah… well… it's the same thing."

"No it's not Miek, there's less death involved in a sim."

"If you want, Wart, I'll make it more involved," Frog commented with another guffaw.

"Shut it Frog. Listen if there's pirates we'll, you know, ask them to leave."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we'll ask them to leave politely with some laser cannon fire."

"But…"

"Trust me, one look at us and they'll turn tale and run."

"One look at Wart's face and they'll run. I saw we just have him float naked out there." Frog's comment was followed by the guffaw again. Miek cringed.

"Shut up Frog. At least I have a chin," Wart said.

"I have a chin!"

"Somewhere. Your mouth looks like a Hutt's."

"Okay children," Miek broke in with a bit of a smile to himself. "Let's settle down. I have a lot of important reading to do on the way. So let's not interrupt the lieutenant."

"Copy."

"Copy."

He checked his chronometer. Still seventeen hours, forty-five minutes to go. He made a private prayer to the Fates of Starstenia that they all arrived at C-15 without him blowing them both up himself. Settling in again, he restarted his show. Silence prevailed over the comlink for several minutes before Wart broke in: "Ninety-nine bottles of juma juice on the wall…"

The alarm on his navicomputer woke him. He jolted up with a start and was instantly stopped by the crash webbing on his pilot couch. It stretched and his body snapped back with an aching grunt from a mouth that only seemed half-willing to regain moisture. He sniffed and wanted to rub his eyes but his gloved hands hit the hard transparisteel of his helmet's eye pieces. _What in the Three Hells is… oh stang, we're here! _Slapping off the crude autopilot he shook himself aware and looked out his viewport. What he saw reminded him of Winter Night celebration on Starstenia with lights darting into the sky and fireworks exploding, illuminating buildings and the giant Winter Tree they always set up in the Capital Plaza. Only this time the lights were laser blasts and the explosions were eruptions of fire and plasma from the old communications relay station.

C-15 was under attack and his comlink was flashing. He'd switched off everything but a link to his wingmen and the transport. With a shaking finger he flipped back to a general frequency. Static shocked his ears before it settled into a frantic female voice. "…ay again, this is Imperial Communications Relay Charlie-Fifteen! We are under attack by unidentified forces! Imperial fighters, please respond? Can you hear me? Please!"

His heart was in his throat and it took a long moment for him to register that he was the one who should be talking. He croaked a word but it died in his throat as one of the containers that circled the station exploded. As the flare of light and fire died in his vision, he found his voice again. "This is Lieutenant Kenr of the 982nd, Squadron Alpha. We read you Charlie-Fifteen, do you have any fighters?"

"Oh thank the Light," the female voice said. She sounded exhausted now, near to crying. "No Alpha we don't. What we had left was destroyed in the opening assault. Bastards took out the hangar bays!"

"Hang in there Charlie-Fifteen, we're coming. I have a transport full of engineers who would love to know what happened. I'm sending them to you, so find them a bloody hangar!"

"I… I copy Alpha, thank you. Thank you!"

_Don't thank me yet lady,_ he thought as he banked his fighter hard and called for his wingmen to stay on him. He didn't check to see if they were there. They would be. Wart wouldn't leave his wing if it meant the emperor himself commanded it. Frog wouldn't want to be left on his own, no matter how much bragging he liked to spew about his time with the 85th on Danaab. He throttled up to attack speed and selected the nearest craft not spouting off an imperial IFF. It was an older model Y-wing that fancied itself "Hunter Two." _Well Hunter Two, let's see how well you fly._

He told himself to be brave, to remain confident in his prowess in a cockpit. It wasn't his fault he graduated so close to the end of his class at the Academy. Humor was the best medicine, but the Empire's instructors never seemed to take a joke. So here he was, facing down pirates or privateers on the edge of space with two of his friends who were there because of discipline issues or because of him, in Wart's case. Sweat beaded on his brow and threatened to run down his face behind his mask. It was bad enough that he couldn't see very well out of the damn thing to start with, but you got used to that. Sweat distracted him. He focused on Hunter Two.

The pirates must have not picked them up on their sensors. As Miek bore down on him, clicking over to quad fire with his laser cannons, the enemy Y-wing didn't even seem to notice. It wasn't until Miek gave him a double burst of fire that eradicated his rear shielding that he juked out of the way, turning hard in an attempt to get out of Miek's line of fire. Throttling back, Miek pushed hard on the rudders, shoving the controls to the left and back to pull himself into a half-inverted loop to follow. As he came around the Y-wing exploded and several laser cannon fire passed through the disintegrating cloud.

"I got one!" Wart hooted. "Did you see that Frog? Miek chased him right into my line of fire, nice job Miek!"

_Yeah, I meant to do that. _"Great job Wart, way to go, now—" his HUD lit up, indicating he was being fired upon and Miek tucked the controls the opposite way, stomped on the rudder and pulled back, sending his fighter into a snap-roll that turned him upside down to his last position and pulled back. The Y-wing designated "Hunter Three" blew by him with a roar. He glanced up through his upper viewport and saw Frog and Wart split apart to let the Y-wing pass between them. Neither had gotten a shot off.

"Frog, pull up and chase, I'm going to undercut him. Draw him away from station."

"If he's still in one piece."

"Wart, on me."

The two interceptors looped around, Wart corkscrewing to join his plane of flight. Miek caught sight of Frog's fighter pull back around and give chase to Hunter Three. He and Wart dove further, looping under Frog and his quarry in a wide arc. They became mere specks in the distance, their hulls glinting with starlight and explosions from the station. Hurriedly, Miek checked the condition of the station and cringed. It had lost most of its shielding by now and was taking a severe pounding. Omega was taking its sweet old time getting to the platform and staying well out of the way, he noticed. _Probably best they don't alert the Hunters to their presence if we can help it._

Miek and Wart throttled up and sped towards where Frog was scoring a few hits on Hunter Three's rear shields. Then another Y-wing appeared, closing in on Frog from behind. _Stang,_ Miek cursed. "Frog, you have one on your six. I need you to hold course."

"You want me to hold my what? Get him off me!"

"I will, just hold course, ten seconds."

"Oh stang! There he is. He's going to drop into a killing position!"

_Not for a few more seconds. I just know it. Eleven seconds until he has you. I only need eight._ "Wart, get ready to open up high on Hunter Three on my mark."

"Okay!"

The Y-wing was weaving, dodging away from Frog's fire which had become much more erratic. Already his Interceptor was juking to throw off his pursuer's aim. _Five seconds._ "Wart, on two, one, fire!"

The space around Miek erupted into a laser light show as Wart let a string of single-fire shots at Hunter Three. His shields took a small beating and he juked, then dove… right into Miek's killzone. _One._ He pulled the firing studs, loosing two streams of quad-linked cannon shots. The Y-wing exploded, its port engine tumbling away in a quick spiral, tumbling end over end. "Break, Frog, break!"

Frog banked quickly away from the incoming laser fire that entered the space he had just occupied. He was spinning and had lost some control of his ship, the interceptor sliding and tumbling. He heard him crying out and flailing over the comlink. There was no time to help him right now and the Y-wing turned, bearing its cannons at Miek and Wart. "Let'em have it Wart!" Together they unleashed a hailstorm of quick fire. The Y-wing took a beating, its shields disappearing under the barrage before it turned away and throttled up.

"Miek, look, they're leaving!" Wart's shout had him take a glance at his sensors. Three blips that had been there were no longer there and the remaining Hunter, which they had just seen peel off was powering up its hyperdrive. Wart was hooting. "We did it! Hah! Did you see us Frog? We got'em! Frog? Frog did you see it? Frog?"

There was no response. Miek checked his sensors and only spotted he and Wart's fighters. _What happened? He was just here? He wasn't even hit? _Sweat ran down his forehead. His palms felt sticky and hot and his stomach was clenching. "Frog?" he called. "Frog check in." Only silence. Neither of them spoke. _By the Fates… I've gotten him killed. He followed my orders and he's dead. Dead. What did I do? I knew it was eleven seconds…_

"Finally!" Frog's voice was grumbling, a loud pop of static then followed before it settled down. "Stupid twice-damned good-for-nothing bucket-of-bolts!"

"Frog!" Wart cried, his elation obvious. "You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive you nerfwit. I lost power because this thing's a piece of bantha pu-"

"Form up on us, Frog," Miek said, a smile bursting onto his face. "We have a transport to deliver. They're all gone."

"Shame that. I would have really gotten them all myself."

"You wouldn't Frog, we saved you! Did you see!?"

"You didn't save nothing. I had it all fine."

Miek sighed and led his group back towards the station. It was burning in a few places where gas or air was leaking. One of its platforms was completely destroyed, the hexagonal landing pad free floating several klicks away. His wingmen continued to argue the finer points of who saved who while they wheeled themselves over the broken platform. Switching over his com, Miek hailed the Omega.

"Copy Alpha, we're en route to Landing Bay Three. They have a soft-seal for us. Thanks for the escort."

After confirming everything with the Omega's pilot again, he sat back and let out the tension he'd been holding. He hadn't come looking for a scrap, but somehow his people had pulled through. _My people. Stang but just last week I was someone else's people. That old woman was just crazy. I'm not a natural leader. I'm just lucky._

His comlink was flashing. A buzz in his ear signaled the station hailing him. As soon as he opened up the comlink, that female voice was back. "Thank you Alpha, for your help. I… I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't shown up."

"Did they make demands?" Miek asked. _They probably would have boarded you, taken your supplies…_ he didn't want to think about the rest. She sounded young and if they were pirates with little morality, it would have gone badly for her. "No," she replied. "They just attacked. We picked up something big at the edge of the system but it's gone now."

"Big?" Miek asked. "Big like what?"

"Big like a Cruiser big. Maybe as big as a Star Destroyer. Maybe bigger."

_What would have such an interest in a minor listening post like this? _"Copy Charlie-Fifteen. Want us to take a look?"

"No, no please. Stay here. I don't want to let you out of my sight."

Miek smirked a little.

"I, I mean it's just we're here alone and… well the station commander's dead and…"

"Wait, who am I speaking to?"

"My name's Ren. I mean, Lance Corporal Ren Tully."

Miek blinked. _A stormtrooper? Can't be._

"Uh, all right Corporal. Who's in command there?"

"There's an Ensign Jackson sir, but he's down seeing to the soft-seal. He left me in command on the deck."

_The Ensign is commanding the repair crews?_

"Copy that Corporal. We'll stand by."

He cut the transmission and no sooner had he done that but Frog came over the squad comlink. "We should probably land ourselves, Miek."

"Yeah," Wart said with a giggle. "I think Frog's wet himself."

"I'm going to make you wet yourself Wart. I'll punch you so hard you're going to wish… you're going to wish… well that I'd not punched you."

"Poetic," Miek said. "But I could use a stretch of legs. I'll see about getting us some time on the station."

"Good. I need a pisser," Frog sighed.

"Told you. Hey, wasn't that a girl's voice we heard?"


	3. Chapter 2 - Ren

2. REN

Her hands were covered in blood and charred remnants of flesh as they were pressed, splayed, against the control panel. Half of the control panel was blown out, a large chunk of ceiling having fallen through it. The severed upper half of the young man who'd been working at the console there lay on it's back, dead eyes looking up a the ceiling as if asking why. His blood had sprayed like a fountain, coating her from head to toe on her right side in splotches of blood and gore. She'd been standing just a foot away when it had come down. It had been quiet all day, not a thing happening. There were no messages to relay, no updates from Endor. She and the rest of Scout Company D178 had just been doing their regular rounds and cracking small jokes with each other about the remoteness of their situation. Ren herself had just been talking to the severed torso, asking after his wife when the whole station lit up with alerts. Then it shook, metal screeched and there was an explosion and the roof had come down. She had stood there when the visor of her Scout Trooper helmet had suddenly gone red and she felt the sick, wet splash of blood against her black and white armor. Sometime after that the attack had come and she'd ripped off her helmet so she could see, letting her mousy brown hair come unknotted from behind her head. Half lay across her white pauldrons, the other half in a loose semblance of a back-knot of Imperial regulation.

She wasn't sure when she'd ripped off her gloves, or where they were now. But she'd felt for the severed torso's pulse. _I must be in shock._ She kept telling herself that as she assumed the communications post, calling for help. She hadn't removed her hands from the console since, except to hit a few buttons, pull a few switches, turn a few knobs. The commander was dead, she'd heard it over the comlink. Ensign Kalstak was in command down on the flight deck. She vaguely remembered asking what happened to the pilots. _They're all dead. Everyone's dead. Light but what's happened! _The battle outside was over. The pirates, or whatever they were, had been routed by a random Imperial Patrol that had come by and saved them. The three pilots were coming aboard. They were saved. She was saved.

Her legs wobbled and she suddenly felt as if there was no strength left in them. She slid to her knees and pulled her hands free of the console. They tore away, sticky with blood and gore, and she covered her face with them for a moment. Her hands smelled rancid, but she hardly noticed. All of it was dried to her skin. Letting out one anguished sob, she steeled herself and wiped at her face with the back of her forearm. Standing, she looked around for her helmet. After a short search she found it crushed beneath a wall panel that had fallen out. Glancing around, she saw the destruction of the control room. Every one who had sat in that room had died. Several lay face down at their consoles. Others lay broken and bloody on the floor. A woman behind her was sitting on the ground, back against the wall, legs spread on the ground, chin slumped on her chest. Crouching, Ren lifted her chin to check for a pulse. The face that gazed back was nothing more than a bloody hole where a pipe had ripped through it. The chin and forehead remained, and a faint outline of her cheeks. Red hair was matted against the woman's head, though her cap remained firmly in place. Ren screamed and fell back onto her backside, scrambling away. Staring for another moment, she turned and vomited. A slow realization crept over her.

_I alone survived here. Oh Light. Blessed are the sparks of the One who looked down upon me today._ She splayed a gore-filled hand across her breastplate, over her heart, and dipped her chin. It was a traditional sign from her homeworld, a prayer of blessing from the One, She Who Lights the Universe. Not many believed in her so-called "nonsense" in the military, so she kept her religious nature to herself. Not that anyone could care right now. No one would be talking to her about it. _They're all dead._

She rose slowly, pushing herself to her knees first and then holding onto a fallen girder for support as she struggled to her feet. Steadying herself for a moment, Ren tried to breathe. She inhaled slowly and deeply, trying to stop her heart from pounding so its beat wouldn't deafen her. _I have to think. Have to think. Oh Light what did you save me for? _She stepped over some debris and ducked beneath a catwalk that had collapsed, holding onto an overturned railing for support as she did so. A dead man stared at her from the other side, his mouth hanging open in a silent scream. He was hanging upside down from the catwalk, looking like he was in the middle of a dive, his boot caught somewhere over the side. Ren stopped, shivering. She couldn't breathe. It felt like her entire chest was a lead brick. Her armor felt like an anchor, holding her chest in. Scrambling, she ripped it off and threw it to the ground, leaving her with only the shoulder guards and elbow armor from the waist up. The white girdle she wore around her middle had been torn away in the explosion and her side was bruised and scraped. The black jumpsuit she wore beneath the scout armor was torn there and she held a hand to the wound. It stung but not badly.

The door to the command center was caved in, laying like a bent slab in the corner of the room. There was a pool of blood at its base. Ren didn't want to look behind it. The hallway was a stark contrast to the carnage she'd witnessed inside the command center. There was hardly a score mark here. The only sign of the attack was the flickering of lights. There was a ringing in her ears that she became suddenly aware of. Wincing, she rubbed at her temple and stumbled down the hallway, her hand reaching out to pillars and walls for support as she pushed one foot in front of another. _Flight Deck, must get to flight deck._ The ringing continued and slowly dissolved into a beeping. It was coming from her belt, she realized suddenly and reached down, snatching out the back-up comlink. The light was flashing. Someone was trying to reach her. Grasping the comlink in both hands to keep it from falling out of her grasp, Ren switched it on.

"TS 1670," she said with practiced precision. She was certain it was the practiced response that saved her from sounding like she was shaking. Her mouth felt dry, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth and she tasted blood, new and old blood. She tried to work some spit back into her mouth but it felt like sandpaper. She needed water and was beginning to feel faint. She leaned against the wall as the response came. "Corporal," the voice was male and she felt like she should know it. It went on. "Good to hear you're alive. I've been trying to reach Petty Officer Erolls for the past half hour. Is she with you?"

Ren's head was swimming and she hardly heard him. _Erolls? What is an Erolls?_ "Sir?" she asked, her voice sounded slurred for a moment. "Say again?" That time her voice sounded more firm. The ensign seemed more reluctant now. "Are you all right Corporal? Can you get down to the flight deck? We have a medic here. Is Petty Officer Tara Erolls with you?" The name now began to mean something to her. _Tara Erolls. Petty Officer. Pretty eyes. Redhead. Pretty…girl. She had red hair. _And suddenly the memory of the faceless woman came rushing back and she turned just in time to vomit stomach acid against the bulkhead. She hacked, wheezed and coughed while the ensign was calling to her, asking if she was all right. Wiping the back of her mouth with a hand she sighed. "Scratches…" she breathed. "Erolls is dead, sir. She… I saw… she's dead."

Moments passed and Ren swayed. She thought she'd fall to the ground right then and there, weak as her knees felt. The gash on her side was beginning to sting now, as well as many other areas of her body that feeling had returned too. Part of her knew that was the adrenaline wearing off. She had more than basic field medicine training, most scouts were required to know that sort of thing, and it all reeked of concussions and shock. _Must keep awake,_ she thought and shoved herself back to an erect position. The ensign was talking again. "Damn it all. Who's in charge up there?" Sighing again, Ren made herself shuffle down the hall towards a turbolift. It wasn't a long walk, and for that she was thankful. "No one sir, they're all dead." The ensign's voice was incredulous, asking how and she told him in very short descriptions what she'd seen. She had to stop once more to throw up after she'd ended the conversation with a promise to get to the flight deck as soon as possible.

The walk to the turbolift felt like an eternity. Between the nausea that kept threatening to double her over, and her knees feeling like they were made of gelatin, Ren had to move slowly, one foot in front of the other until she made it to the lift door. She wondered what it had been that let her stand so confidently there in the control room but feel like she might slide into unconsciousness any second out here. _Shock. _She told herself it had to be that.

Inside the turbolift, she pressed the key for the flight deck. The panel lit up and then flashed red. Her stomach twisted and her cheeks felt hot. Her vision blurred and she felt hot tears stinging her cheeks. _It's not fair. The turbolift can't stop working. It always works. Turbolifts always work._ She sank to the ground and rested her head against the turbolift's arm railing. For a long time she just stared at the flashing red buttons, hoping that any moment now they would turn to green and she would start moving. _I'm too tired to move. Too tired to walk. I just want to sleep._ The comlink was buzzing again and she numbly clicked it on.

"Corporal, you functional?"

_No,_ she wanted to say. _No please come get me, please put me in a bed so I can sleep._ Instead she sighed and rolled her head to stare down at the comlink. "Yes sir," she said doggedly. "But the turbolift is out, I'm stuck up here." She heard the man curse and for a moment she almost hoped he'd given up on her, just let her sit up there until everything was fixed. She would just roll over where she sat and close her eyes. _I would just sleep for a few hours, and then I would be okay._

"Hang tight corporal, there's a few Jennies arriving from C-16. I'll send a few to get the lift working and get you out of there. Is there anyone else with you? Anyone at all?" She shook her head in response and then sighed when she realized he couldn't see her. Reaching a hand up, she wiped away tears that mixed with fresh blood. _Where is that blood from? Is it mine?_ In her mind she saw the faceless woman again and a fresh surge of nausea threatened to overcome her. Instead she swallowed and lowered her hand. "Yes sir," she managed to say before clicking off the comlink.

Staring at the open turbolift door, Ren debated closing her eyes. If she drifted to sleep she might not wake up, but on the other hand, she might. Did it matter? She only had one family member still alive that she knew about, and her sister wanted nothing to do with her. Both of her parents had died of disease on their space station home in the outer-rim. The whole station had caught it and been quarantined. It wiped out her parents, grandparents, her sister and her husband and their two kids. And Brienne had hated her, despised her for joining the cursed Empire, for becoming a soldier and learning to kill. Her family abhorred violence. They were all clerics and priests, teaching about The Light and it's Calm. She'd never felt the Calm. She prayed to The Light, asked for its illuminous mercy, but she never felt any warmth, no glow around her soul. She wanted to _do_ something with her life. Something important, maybe save someone's life. Staring at her blood soaked boots, Ren didn't believe she could do that anymore either. _Oh Light, what am I doing here? _

Her vision blurred and she shook her head, trying to clear it. The doorway before her turned so hazy that she could not make out the hallway beyond the door. It was just a bright, white blur that grew in intensity, and pulsed. _I'm going to die,_ she thought, slamming her fist against the grate flooring of the turbolift. _Light but I…_ The white blur became an overpowering beacon of white light and she almost had to shut her eyes. Instead she held a hand up to her eyes, cringing. _What is… is that… Oh Light!_

She felt warm then, like a hot blanket had been wrapped around her. It eased her muscles, dulled her pain. _The shock,_ she tried to reason, but the light was pulsing evenly now. It pulsed in time with her own heartbeat. She felt her pulse quicken and strength course through her, filling her with resolve, filling her with hope. _I can do this. I can go on._ The light was ebbing again, and before she knew it, the pulse was gone and the hallway was back. Realizing that she was standing, Ren stared at where the light had been. _It was the shock… making me see things… or was it? I feel stronger… Light!_

She did feel stronger. Her wound hardly ached her, and her exhaustion seemed all but gone. Taking a tentative step forward, she felt like she could jog the length of the station. She peaked into the hallway and saw the stairwell at the very end and set her jaw. _I can do this._ Plucking her comlink from her belt, she signaled the ensign on the flightdeck. "Sir, this is Corporal Tully. I'm on my way, keep the Jennies on their primary mission."

"Uh," the ensigns voice sounded more than a little surprised. "Right, good show Corporal. I'll go divert them now. Good to hear you are on your way." And then the transmission cut and she rolled her eyes as she stepped into the hallway again. _Light! He never meant to send those Jennies at all! He meant to let me die up here!_ Officers were good for only two things, giving orders and making a mess of them. Jackson seemed to make them go hand in hand.

She was nearly to the flightdeck when her newfound strength finally began to give out. Panting, she had stripped off all but her black under armor to ditch weight. She kept her utility belt and her cargo pockets on her pants filled with medical supplies and food capsules, which she had eaten some of on the way down. On her right boot she kept her pistol safely tucked into its holster. The cummerbund she'd worn around her stomach had been torn in half and used as a makeshift bandage for the wound in her side. What medical supplies she'd managed to come across weren't sufficient to keep it from opening every time she stepped down or fell against the wall. Already it was soaked through with blood.

The flight deck was a chaotic scene when she limped her way in. Lights were flickering, power grids were sparking, men were running everywhere, and droids were scuttling about with seemingly little direction. Ships were parked without any sense of order, and some of them were even half-crushed beneath portions of the station that had fallen in. The air had a taste of metal, a sign of failing refurbishing. She grabbed a tech by the arm as he ran by and was nearly pulled down by the force of his flight. Asking after the ensign, the tech pointed her towards where a large hole was cut into the side of the station and an imperial officer (the ensign it seemed) was speaking with men in black flight suits. Ren guessed they had to be the pilots she'd spoken to who had come to their rescue. With a final surge of energy, she limped towards them.

They were talking when Ren arrived. Ensign Jackson was waving his hands in front of him as he described how the pirates had attacked the station so suddenly and how he had simply been keeping the hangars operating until the Captain, a Jerod Killjoy (a name Ren found most amusing), had been killed in an explosion and left him in command. The man he was talking to was young, with short-cropped black hair and such bright blue eyes that Ren had to blink to make sure she had seen them right. They were the color of an electrical circuit, bright and flashing, with a gem-like quality that reminded her of topaz, or Blue Fizz. His skin was fair and smooth, which gave him a youthful appearance. She guessed his age at around twenty-five.

The other two pilots were harder to gauge. One was shorter than the first by at least six inches. He crouched like he was constantly hiding behind the blue-eyed pilot's shoulder. He had gray eyes, a mop of brown hair and cheeks dotted with small warts and boils. His face might have been pleasing without those, Ren considered, and placed his age around twenty, or perhaps late teens. The other man was taller and rail thin with a wide mouth and small, dark eyes. His hair was a light color but shaved so close he was nearly bald. He was speaking just as Ren reached them, his voice slow and guttural. It reminded her of a frog's croak.

"…so that's when we arrived Ensign," the frog-voiced man finished. The smaller boy turned and his large eyes lit up at the sigh of Ren. He slapped the blue-eyed pilot on the arm. "See! I told you there was a girl!" And then he went red and seemed to shrink behind his friend's arm. They all seemed to notice her then. Ensign Jackson frowned. "Corporal Tully?"

"Yes, sir I…" Ren's world suddenly spun. Her legs went to jelly and she felt the ground rushing up to meet her. Just as she was about kiss the duracrete floor, an arm shot under her and caught her. Two blue eyes stared into hers, and she thought she saw worry for a moment. Then they were laughing again, the young pilot's grin lighting up his whole face.

"Whoa now, Corporal. That's no way to greet your rescuers." She was lowered onto her back and Ren had to shut her eyes. The world continued to feel like a corkscrew spin on an out-of-control speederbike. "Frog check her vitals, Wart help me."

_Frog. He must be the frog-voiced one._ The thought felt stupid. Of course he was. And Wart was the wart-faced boy. _Pilots are so unoriginal_, she thought. She felt her body being raised up slightly, someone's arms holding her from behind. "I'm fine," she tried to say, but wasn't sure any of those words actually left her lips. Propped against one of the pilot's laps she looked up into two blue eyes. He gave her a reassuring smile just before a lancing pain from her side caused her to cry out.

"Miek she's got something in here. Ensign do you have a medbay?" Frog croaked. _Miek is the blue-eyed one._

"Up… upstairs…"

"It's all a mess," she sighed, feeling suddenly sick.

Then she felt her stomach heave and she retched again all over the blue-eyed pilot's lap.

"Sorry," she mumbled as the world went dark.


	4. Chapter 3 - Bennet

3. BENNET

The girl stopped struggling. Lieutenant Bennet Vanderly was thankful for that. At nearly sixty, he was getting too old and too tired to deal with discordant teenaged prisoners. He disliked this business, but it was not in him to object. His service was nearly over and retirement would help put it all behind him. He would find a small planet somewhere, a warm planet, where the breezes were always there to blow through his thick white hair. Unlike most men his age, Bennet had never lost his hair. It lay atop his head like a snowy cap, perfectly combed and groomed. Mustaches and beards had come and gone with the fashions but his hair would never change. _She had liked it this way._

The shuttle entered the Imperial Star Destroyer _Eminence _smoothly, settling down onto the deck with a slight bump, and the exhaling of compressed air. Bennet stood, his knees feeling swollen and sore from the pressure change already. Pausing by the door, he waited for the pilot to move into the main compartment. Once alone, he pulled a small flask from inside his duty jacket, unstopped it and took a drink of the bitter liquid inside. He hated the taste of bacta. He hated it even in the form they had given him for small aches. Even disguised in alcohol, it didn't stop the ripe, moldy flavor from creeping up the back of his throat. Bennet placed the flask back in his jacket and moved aft.

The girl wore a blast-shielded helmet to blind her and deafen her. Her hands had been bound together in front of her while her upper arms were restrained by a cord that ran around her back. _It wouldn't have been necessary if she hadn't clawed one security officer's cheek to shreds._ The thought did not seem to settle him and the sight of her made him shameful. _Nineteen,_ he told himself again. _She's nineteen, just like Kayla was._

"Move her," he said with a motion to the two black-suited, bowl-helmeted soldiers to either side of the girl's flight couch. They saluted him, then took her roughly by the arms and lifted her up. She made a muffled cry but the helmet made any sound she made impossible to understand. _Don't look at her, don't listen to her._ He had a job to do. The helmet was to keep her from knowing her location. _Or could you just not bear to look at her?_ Bennet shook his head and tried to ignore the thought. As she was shoved to the ramp that led to the Star Destroyer's flight deck, he thought instead of a tropical planet with sunshine that did not hurt his knees. _Just one more year. One more year._

The flight deck was in chaos when he descended and a rank smell flowered amongst a knot of dirty men all shoved onto their knees. Stormtroopers kept them under guard, carbines trained on them. _Pirates,_ he thought. _Their mission on station C-15 must not have pleased the Captain._

They skirted wide of the gathered group and Bennet motioned to the two guards. "Take her to the detention area to await the Captain's pleasure," he said. The two men nodded, saluted and dragged her off to the turbolifts. He watched them go, swallowing his concern and the vile feeling in his stomach. _A means to an end,_ he thought as he turned from the sight of her. Bennet closed his eyes to focus himself. His duty to the Captain would demand all of his patience, all of his calm and coolness. He would deliver the news that the raid on the shipyards had been successful and his prize was in hand. _That should satisfy the fat fool._

Captain Tamoth Raghar was an extraordinarily fat man. There was no standard imperial sized uniform that would fit his girth, so they were all shipped in special. Bennet was in charge of that, as well as all the Captain's many other insignificant, yet private issues. Weight requirements for Imperial service was closely regulated, and he was well outside of it. Bennet kept those precise facts hidden, and all the uniforms were shipped through odd channels to keep them away from the Regulatory Affairs. Bennet also escorted the Captain's concubines to and from the ship, as vile as they were sometimes. He kept the man's secrets, secrets that Raghar would entrust to no other officer. Bennet knew he should feel privileged but it only made him yearn for retirement more and more.

Raghar sat on a chair that been erected in the hangar bay from a TIE Bomber flight couch. It was just big enough to fit his girth and sturdy enough not to creak when he moved. _His throne,_ Bennet thought with a frown. _He has always thought himself a king._ Bennet always thought he looked like a hutt on his slab when he sat on that seat. Tamoth Raghar was just as big around as he was tall. The naval uniform he wore fit tightly around his belly, which moved like an angry sea everytime he gestured. Wispy scruff adorned the Captain's round cheeks and many chins, though it was salted gray and brown. He had little hair left, and what he did was shaved short and under a small officer's cap. The only hair that truly grew thick on his head were his eyebrows, large brown drapes that ridged a heavy brow and hid small eyes. In comparison to him, the Captain's rank sigil was almost lost in a sea of brown.

Bennet had helped him obtain his current rank. He'd fudged over his mistakes, helped plan his attacks, helped him escape his failures. He'd done it all for Kayla, but she was long dead. _Why do I still do it?_ Then he remembered the beach house and the sun shining on his tired and wrinkled face, the wind blowing through his thick white hair. _All my evil for a rest. Rest is what I deserve._

The crowd gathered around the Captain was mostly stormtroopers and the few pilots who had escorted the men in after the mission. The _Eminence _had few pilots left, and those that remained were kept close at hand. Four of them had flown out to retrieve the pilots, Captain Marc Engy, Lieutenant Inan Orenson, Lieutenant Victor Kenner, and Flight Officer Rober Royce. Engy was an older veteran, closer to forty than he told people. His hair was shaved to nothing to hide his balding, and his tan face was lined and scarred. The only thing Bennet had ever heard said to be attractive about Marc Engy was his eyes, which were green and intense. In comparison, Orenson and Kenner were both younger pilots, leftovers from the last year's shipment of rookies from the academy. They had seen some action, gotten a few kills and survived. That had earned them their LT bars. Orenson was a short, blonde man without a hint of facial hair and a face that made him look ten years younger than his twenty-five. Kenner was taller, with curly black hair, a bulbous nose and constant stubble. Royce, the flight officer was a mystery to Bennet. He was twenty years old, a rookie from the academy with a fierce talent in the cockpit. He already outflew Engy and he'd seen a single combat against a rebel outpost and had made himself an ace already. _But his record is clean, and a clean record full of talent makes for a dangerous story._

The stormtroopers kept the five pirates on their knees. One was kept apart from the others, kneeling closer to Raghar. Blood dripped from several wounds on his face where the troopers had handled him roughly. His graying hair was held back in a disheveled ponytail and his beard was ragged and burned in places. He smelled of engine fluids, urine and alcohol. Bennet's nose wrinkled as he came to stand next to Raghar, datapad in hand.

"You're late," the captain said in a nasally voice. "What took so long?"

"There was some resistance at the school," Bennet said, his voice stiff and precise. "The local planetary defenses did not take kindly to our demands." He kept his gaze straight ahead, over the pirates' heads, but he knew his captain was staring at him, a frown on his face. Bennet glanced down at his datapad. "We lost one man, a Private Jentower, and were forced to neutralize fifteen planetary police officers."

"Rebel scum," Raghar said with a wheezing breath. "I told you they were joining those terrorists, I told you."

"Yes, sir."

"Was the package hurt?"

"No, sir," Bennet reported, glancing down at his captain with a shake of his head. "She was taken in her classroom and transported directly to the shuttle." _Best not to mention that the officers were killed when our shuttle opened fire on them before landing just outside the school doors._ He closed the report and sent it off to Raghar's private office computer. "The report will be ready for you when you have need of it."

"Good!" Raghar squealed, delighted. "At least _one_ of my men is _loyal_ and _able._ Unlike the likes of you." The captain was pointing a sausage sized finger at the closest pirate, the one with the ponytail. Bennet guessed he was their leader.

"So," the captain said. "Was… one little station too much to ask for? Just one little station? I _paid_ you didn't I?"

"I attack this station." The gray-haired pirate's voice was muffled slightly where his tongue had swelled from the beating. "But TIE Fighters show. Take losses, we run."

Raghar gave a signal to one of the troopers guarding the man. The trooper hauled back his blaster and struck the pirate in the face, crumpling him to the floor. "We run, _my lord_. Say it or I'll have them hit you so hard your own mother won't recognize you." The captain smiled at him, a big, wide smile full of perfect teeth. Bennet hid his frown.

The pirate sputtered and spit a tooth onto the deck, wheezed a breath into his lungs and then struggled to his knees again. "We run… my… my lord." Raghar was pleased and was grinning. It was a wide grin, splitting his fat face from ear to ear. A perfect row of small teeth showed, top and bottom. Then he laughed, his bulk jiggling. "That's right, you ran! I asked you to take a single small station and you ran."

The man on his knees raised his blooding head. "They had reinforcements. They show up, come from no place!"

"Nowhere."

"What?"

"They came from _nowhere_," Raghar said, drawing out each word slowly. "The correct term is nowhere, and the correct phrase is, 'They came from nowhere, my lord.'" He turned to Bennet. "Isn't that right, lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," Bennet told him, hiding the exhaustion in his voice. "You have it in the right." One of the captain's more irritating habits was insisting on correcting everyone's speech. The pirate was looking at Raghar blindly, lips working but no words coming to them. Disgusted, the captain waved a hand. "I'm tired of looking at him, let's be done with this. Odan," he addressed the pirate as he lifted his bulk from the chair. "Odan is your blasted name right?"

_No, his name is Oran, my _lord_, _Bennet thought.

The pirate nodded and the troopers hauled him to his feet. "I don't think you properly appreciate the _magnificence _of an Imperial Star Destroyer. Allow me to show you." Raghar signaled and the troopers began hauling him bodily towards the TIE Fighter launch tubes. The man began to scream the moment he realized where they were taking him.

"Don't be such a coward," Raghar said, waddling after him and snapping his fingers to Bennet. He handed his captain the datapad with launch controls already prepped for him. "Plenty of your kin die in vacuum, why should you be no different?"

It didn't take long to load the beaten man into the enormous launch tube. The two troopers threw him inside and shut the hatch. From a window used by flight engineers to examine the launches, Bennet watched with a frown. The captain smiled. Oran beat his fists on the hatch until his hands bled. He screamed but no sound came through the thick bulkheads. With a shrug, Raghar tapped a key on the pad. Oran turned, his eyes wide with fear. His mouth opened to say something, or perhaps to scream. Then, he was gone. The TIE launch hatch had been directly below him and Bennet could see his struggling body floating through open space. He felt his stomach tighten but he had seen the captain do worse things. _Much worse,_ he thought. _And all of them I helped him prepare._

"Well, now he'll get a real good view I suspect," Raghar said, turning to him with a delighted grin splitting his face again. "Vanderly, I want you to be in touch with the commandant of the factory station by this afternoon. Let him know that we have his daughter and that we'll be expecting the TIE Interceptors ready for modification within the week."

Bennet bowed his head, wincing as his knee gave a sharp shock of pain. "If he refuses, sir?" _I already know the answer but I'll hold to hope._

"Refuses?" Raghar said, chuckling. "He won't refuse. But if he does, tell him we'll send him one finger for every day he delays, and then after ten days, I'll send him toes." Heaving his bulk into motion, Raghar pushed passed Bennet and slapped his belly with a throaty laugh. "And once that's done, well I'll send him names."

Bennet nodded, feeling even more tired than he had a moment ago. _Names of every man who will have had her way with her._ He fell in step behind the captain, pretending to be tapping on his datapad. He was staring past it, thinking. _Nineteen. She's just nineteen._ A brief sense of bravado came over him and he looked up, intending to let the captain know it would only be a bluff, they wouldn't dare hurt a woman so young, so innocent. He raised a hand and then dropped it, the bravery fleeing from him. _Just one more year and then I'll be sitting on a beach._

In the turbolift, Bennet finally spoke. "Captain, now that Oran is dead, we may have trouble securing the Hunter Hands Guild. If word gets out that we execute failures, it won't make us a likely employ for any more mercenaries."

"We pay well, mercenaries will come. But soon enough we won't have to worry about that. We'll have plenty of pilots." Bennet licked his lips and felt them cracked and split. He rubbed a wrinkled cheek. "But where are we getting the men? The Sector Admiral hasn't authorized us any more transfers this quarter."

Raghar giggled, his round shape shaking. "Lieutenant, perhaps you mistook the reason for our dear Hunter's raiding party?"

"To eliminate a communications relay station."

"Our _own_ relay station, yes."

Bennet watched him. _It didn't make much sense to me but what is he hiding?_ "Is there something you haven't told me sir?"

The turbolift door opened and Raghar stepped off, Bennet in his wake. The bridge was a bustle of activity, with junior officers running about like an upended anthill. He saw panic on almost all of their faces, yet the captain seemed pleased. Waddling down the catwalk that split the crewpit in half, Raghar went to the large viewport and placed his hands on the railing. Bennet joined him. Beyond was a sea of stars, the Star Destroyer's dagger-like bow cutting through the dark. For a long time the captain was silent, even when another junior officer came to stand, awaiting his attention. When he finally took the young man's datapad, Raghar only glanced at it before smiling out the window again.

"I have cut ourselves from the Sector Admiral's grip, Vanderly."

Shock ran through Bennet. _Cut ourselves from him? That's treason! _His face must have gone white because Raghar chuckled. "You poor old sod," he said and laid a datapad against his chest. "Everything's changed. I'm going to make us rich beyond your wildest dreams and the Empire can't do a thing about it. Have you heard of the Clom System, Vanderly?"

With a shaking hand, Bennet took the datadisc and inserted it into his datapad. He didn't dare look at it yet. For an answer, he merely shook his head. "I thought not," the captain shrugged and smiled, gazing out the viewport. "It's a system on the verge of civil war. Once we have our new fighters and two more _Victory_-Class Destroyers at our beck and call, we'll push it over that verge and see who sings the highest price for our protection."

_He means to play one side against another,_ Bennet knew. It was how he did things, never committing, just playing everyone against each other. _It was how I taught him._ "Sir, is that… well isn't that…?"

"Treason?"

"Well, sir, I…"

"Yes, Vanderly, it is." Raghar turned to him and shoved the datapad into his face. "But the Empire will have a lot more to think about than Warlord Raghar." The term _warlord_ sent another shiver up Bennet's spine, but that was nothing compared to what he saw on the datapad in his hands. His breath was driven from him and his knee gave out. Raghar laughed as Bennet weakly reached for the handrail, but ended up slumped against the walkway anyway. _This can't be real. This is a rebel trick._

But it wasn't. The Emperor was dead and with him, Bennet's hopes for a quiet life.


	5. Chapter 4 - Wart

4. WART

Wart was good at precisely two things: flying and slicing, and the former was dwarfed by the latter. He'd only barely graduated from the Academy a year ago. He'd shown no exceptional talent for space, but scored well enough to be made one of a hundred thousand TIE pilots that weren't expected to live out their first combat mission. He had survived three now, mostly through his friend Miek's advice. The blue-eyed lieutenant was an exceptional pilot, everyone had said so, but his aloof attitude and alien status kept him from any true rise in rank. _He looks human to me,_ Wart always thought.

They kept him on the communications relay because of his real talent with computers, and why he now sat slicing through ComStation C-15's banks of communication servers, trying to get the latest that had come through before the attack. Surrounded by half-destroyed computer banks, fried electronics and hanging wires, Wart had salvaged the back-up server and a few vital banks of data and sat on the scorched floor with his datapad, sifting through them all. He'd found one listed as priority one and set to work on it. In five minutes he had the message sliced.

As the message blinked on his screen, he felt the sudden urge to run from the room screaming. It was all he could do from losing control of his bladder. Wart stood quickly when the message had been decrypted but now he sank slowly back into his seat. He'd been at the message all morning while the engineers set to work repairing the communications link between this station and C-16. The hope that they might reestablish a link with Imperial Command was dashed to pieces when all the far-reaching satellites came back with nothing but static. Someone had cut them off from Coruscant and Endor, someone who didn't want them to see how the battle went. _But I know now._

MAYDAY MAYDAY EXECUTOR DESTROYED. DEATH STAR BREACHED. FORCES ROUTED. EMPEROR DEAD. EMPEROR DEAD.

Wart chewed on his lower lip, feeling his teeth rub against one of the boil-like scars that pocked his face and given him his nickname. He'd suffered from the disfigurement since he was a child and no bacta treatments had ever cured him of it. His mother told him that sometimes the galaxy gave people trying conditions to make them stronger, but Wart had never felt stronger because of it. _Only uglier._ And now he felt fear unlike any fear he'd ever known. It was worse than the fear he'd felt in his first space battle. It was worse than the time he'd thrown himself against the hatch of his TIE Fighter as it spun wildly out of control towards a pirate frigate. That fear ended the moment he'd burst through the hatch and gone into open space.

This fear didn't end when he looked away from the message, though he tried it anyway. When he looked back, the Emperor was still dead and the Executor was still destroyed. He swallowed hard, but still the lump formed there. It was the fear lump. He hated it, it felt like he was going to vomit every time it came to him. His heart felt like it was made of ice, and his fingers gripped the datapad with such ferocity that his joints hurt. His jaw was clenched too and began to ache. Wart forced himself to relax and picked up his commlink.

"Miek?"

"Yeah?" His friend's voice sounded warped and far away on the other end of the comm. He said he was going to go see the woman who had passed out in the hangar bay and see if he couldn't get some _real_ answers. The officer on deck had been a complete idiot. _He made us look like geniuses. Even Frog, and he's as thick as the Death Star._

"I think you should see this."

"I can't. I'm down in the Med Center, what is it?"

Wart sighed and chewed on his lip again, tapping the datapad against his forehead. "Umm... I… I'll come down."

"For the Force's sake, just tell me."

"I'll be right down." He cut the link and stood up, his joints stiff and sore from sitting cross-legged on the floor for so long. Wart hoped the pain in his joints would keep him from moving through the door, delay the inevitable, for just a little longer. _The Emperor is dead._ The thought kept running through his mind as he stood there, long enough for the pins and needles to subside. He couldn't process it, couldn't comprehend it. Wart scratched at one of the protrusions on his face that gave him his nickname and sighed, then turned and went out.

_The Emperor is dead the emperor is dead the emperor is dead the emperor is dead._ The statement plagued him the whole way to the medical bay but as the door swished open, Wart still didn't believe the words himself. How could it be real? The Emperor was hardly real, more a myth or legend than a real man. Boom-Boom and a few of the other pilots used to say he was a thousand years old and would never die, could not die. _The emperor is dead._

The medbay was a shadow of what it had been. Immediately inside the door the roof had fallen in, with supports forming an M-shaped obstacle of duracrete that Wart had squeeze underneath to bypass. Beyond the lights were unstable, intermittently casting the room into darkness and bright light. Wires had broken free of their holdings and many were strewn across the grated flooring. Some sparked but most were silent, dead, like most of the station. _Like the emperor, dead at Endor. The emperor is dead. Dead dead dead. Like this station, dead like the station._

He found Miek in the rear of the medbay, where things seemed to still be in working order. Miraculously the bacta tanks had been completely untouched and a lone medical droid stood by the operations kiosk, dialing in a few buttons as the girl floated in the blue liquid. Her eyes were closed and she was wrapped in places to keep her modest, though her flesh was marred with quickly healing burns and cuts. _She's pretty. I like her nose, if it wasn't so pinched by the mask thing._

Miek was sitting in a nearby chair, poking at a datapad which was showing one of his friend's endless soap operas. Wart never understood his obsession with those shows. They were predictable and silly, but Miek knew every character and every storyline. Frog said it was all stupid, but Wart thought it had something meaningful if Miek was so interested. So he watched a few in his room from time to time, but it never came to him. _I'm not the smartest guy though, it's not a computer._

The Starstenian pilot looked up as he came closer. Miek looked bored, or tired, Wart couldn't tell. "Well?" he asked, leaning back into his chair and then adopting something of a smile. Miek was always smiling, Wart thought. "What's so bloody important?"

_The emperor is dead. Tell him. Tell him the emperor is dead. Four simple words Wart, be a man. Tell him. _He winced and looked down at the datapad he carried instead. The voice in his head sounded a lot like his father's now. _Be a man you little coward. Say the words. Even a girl can say those words._

"Here," he said with a sniff and handed the datapad out for Miek to grab. He kept his eyes on his boots. He couldn't face his friend with that failure over his head. It wouldn't seem right. Miek had given him lots of advice on how to stay alive and he couldn't even say _the emperor is dead._ He felt the datapad slide from between his fingers as the other pilot took it from him and Wart shifted to lean against the wall. He kept his gaze on his boot tips, scuffing at the floor. He heard the bubbling sound of the girl floating in the bacta tank and Miek's fingers tapping the buttons on his datapad. He waited. _The emperor is dead._

He guessed that Miek found the crux of the message right about the time he stopped tapping on the device. Wart heard his friend's breath pause and there was only the sound of the bacta tank and servos of the medical droid. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, waiting, but it felt like an eternity. He risked a glance to Miek after what could have been an hour or just a few seconds. The blue eyed pilot was staring straight ahead, the datapad loose in his hand, hanging down between his knees. The look on his friend's face was a blank one, a confused one. _He doesn't believe it either. _

"It's not true right?" Wart said, his voice cracking. _I was brave enough to ask that._ Miek turned to look at him, but looked confused again, as if surprised to see him there. Then the Starstenian shook his head. "And you said this came over priority channels?"

"Yes, but…"

"How could we lose?" Miek's asked, his voice bewildered. "They had Ace and Buckshot and Commander Vanmeer. They had the Death Star and The Executor and Star Destroyers and…" Miek still hadn't stood up, and Wart pushed himself off the wall to face him. "Maybe it's a rebel trick. You know, like they faked it so we might… do… something?"

The other pilot looked up at him with a blink. "I don't think so Wart."

"He can't be dead!" Wart shouted and suddenly felt a rush of panic. He felt itchy all over and his hands went into his curly mop of brown hair. "Oh no oh no no no no! Stang it, stang it!" He whirled and looked at the medical droid, wanting an answer from him too but when he demanded it, the droid only went on with his duties with the bacta tank. Frustrated, Wart banged his fists against the droid's metal backplate, screaming. "Hey! Hey! I'm talking to you! Why won't you tell me why! How did the emperor die!"

"Wart!" He felt hands on his shoulders, pulling him away. Where the fingers gripped, his skin burned and he felt even itchier. Panic attacks always made him break out into terrible fits of hives. They'd done so on his first combat mission too, but Miek had helped him cover that up so they didn't send him home.

Suddenly his back was against the wall and Miek was holding his arms at his sides, blue eyes burning into his own. "Hey! Stop it! This is not helping!" Wart struggled, a frantic desire to escape from his captor. His hands pushed against the other man but he couldn't budge him. "No! No it's not true it can't be! What are we going to do! Oh no oh no…"

A slap put stars in his eyes and jarred him from thought. His mind spun and went momentarily numb. For just a moment, the voice in his head that spoke of nothing but doom went silent. For that moment, Wart could do nothing but slump against the wall and then slide slowly to the ground. He gathered his hands against his face and felt hot tears soak his palms. The voice of his father threatened to stop it, but even his calls of cowardice and unmanliness were not enough to keep Wart from sobbing out his fear. When it was over, he felt a hand on his shoulder and then one taking him by the hand and hauling him to his feet again. Blinking away the last few tears from his eyes, Wart saw Miek turn away from him and bend down to pick up the discarded datapad.

Wart sniffed and wiped at his face with his sleeve. Coughing out the last bit of hysteria, he sighed and watched his friend as he sat back down by the bacta tank. "So what do we do now? I mean… I mean if it's real." Wart felt the fear in his voice but knew it was fading. _I can beat this. I can. I will not be a coward._

"Well," Miek said with a shrug, "The first thing is to report it to Colonel Vagon and see what he has to say. We're just pilots, Wart." Miek was right, Wart knew, but it felt wrong somehow. Miek knew everything, he would make it all right. He always found a way to make things right. It shouldn't matter that he was just a Lieutenant. Should it? Miek must have noticed his look, and the young starstenian pilot smiled. "He'll know what to do, Wart. Remember how he got us out of that incident with the shipping containers?"

_Yes._ Wart felt himself smiling and his neck warming. _Yes, Vagon does make everything all right. He'll know what to do. Miek's right. He's always got the right answer. _His stomach began to settle and Wart swallowed the lump in his throat. "Yeah… yeah he stopped the Intelligence agents from arresting us… yeah. He'll know what to do. He has to know."

"He'll know," Miek assured him and then glanced at the woman in the bacta tank. "But right now I'd like to know what she knows. She was in the communications center just before the attack. I think this is more than just a random pirate attack."

Wart blinked and scratched at his cheek. "Why?"

"Because," Miek went on with a shrug, still watching the girl floating in the tank. "Think about it. The communications to this entire sector went out just after your message was received. And just like that, pirates knew which Com-Sats to hit to just to erase the evidence? Doesn't that seem a little… weird to you?"

Wart had to admit it had a certain fishiness to it. Miek was right though. All the communications after the one about the Emperor being dead—_The Emperor is dead_—were cut and that's about when the communications went down. Perhaps five minutes elapsed from the time it was sent to the time of complete communications loss. _Enough time to launch an attack but only if you have readily deployable forces nearby like a rebel cruiser or a Star Destroyer. But all the rebels should be at Endor and no Star Destroyer would attack its own bases!_

"Should I tell Frog?" he asked suddenly, glancing down at the datapad and picking it up off the floor where it had landed. "I mean about the… news?"

"Tell me what?" Frog's voice barreled in from the other room as the bigger man stepped inside, a frown on his wide, fat lips that had given him his name. Running a hand through his greasy black curls, Frog gave Wart a glare. "What news?"

Later, Wart lay in the bunk he'd been given on the station, eyes open and staring at the plasteel ceiling. A panel directly above him had been blown out and wires could be seen inside. Most were intact, but a few lay cut and sparking. The room had only one functional light panel and that one flickered. _But at least it's my own room._ Wart closed his eyes and smiled, thinking of how Frog had gone so silent when he'd heard the news. His eyes had bulged, tongue sticking halfway out of his fat lips, and Wart thought that Frog might actually stoop and hop around like a real frog. Instead he had just rolled his eyes up into his head and passed out. The thought of it made him chuckle, just as it had a hundred times before.

It wasn't that he hated Frog, not really. _Even if he can be a complete and utter spacehead sometimes._ They'd joined the squadron at the same time, graduated from the academy at the same time and even gotten their first kills at the same time, but Frog had always done just a little better than him. He'd graduated higher in the class and had scored better in squadron training. Even their first kill became a contest that Frog won. He'd gotten two while Wart had only gotten one. _And he'll never let me forget it that he's better._

Of course then Miek had come along. No matter what Frog had done to goad the starstenian into a contest, Miek had never taken the bait. _And didn't it make Frog red in his big fat face._ He smiled again and then reached beneath his pillow to pull out the data disk he'd sliced. He'd keep this as a trophy, a memory. Once all of this was over and the dust settled, he could say he was one of the first to know. _The Emperor is dead._ He swallowed and closed his eyes. When the dust settled, they'd all laugh about it. They'd all be fine. Everything would be just fine.

_The Emperor is dead._


End file.
